It was this feeling that had kept the young man from speaking of the incident to anyone--even to the Dean, or to "Mother," as he called Mrs.Baldwin.Perhaps, too, this feeling was the real reason for Phil's sense of kinship with the stranger, for the cowboy himself had moments in his life that he could permit no man to look upon.

But in his thinking of the man whose personality had so impressed him one thing stood out above all the rest--the stranger clearly belonged to that world of which, from experience, the young foreman of the Cross-Triangle knew nothing.

Phil Acton had no desire for the world to which the stranger belonged, but in his heart there was a troublesome question.

If--if he himself were more like the man whom he had met on the Divide; if--if he knew more of that other world; if he, in some degree, belonged to that other world, as Kitty, because of her three years in school belonged, would it make any difference?
From the distant mountain ridge that marks the eastern limits of the Williamson Valley country, and thus, in a degree, marked the limit of Phil's world, the lad's gaze turned again to the scene immediately before him.
The band of horses, followed by the cowboys, were trotting from the narrow pass out into the open flats.

Some of the band--the mothers--went quietly, knowing from past experience that they would in a few hours be returned to their freedom.